Is the Baruch Bulla a FAKE?

[jacobpressures]

I was looking up info on the Uzziah Inscription tablet and i ran into an article here that states that he Baruch and his brother's bullae were frauds.

CORRECTION: A "Royal" Disappointment In the second part of this article, under the heading "Example" and subheading "IDs 3, 4, and 5," the IDs of the biblical Baruch and of his father Neriah are now disqualified, because the two matching bullae in which they were made have been demonstrated to be forgeries. That reduces the maximum possible number of IDs described in this article to five, no longer seven. The minimum number of valid IDs in this article remains at two, because only the first two IDs described in the article are made in an inscription of known provenance (origin or place of discovery). The remaining three possible IDs mentioned in this article are found in bullae that appeared on the antiquities market.

[http://www.sbl-site.org/publications/article.aspx?articleId=292

I found other articles that have stated that this is CONFIRMED!  As of 2004, BAR still has it as an important item.

Here is the BAR article http://www.bib-arch.org/e-features/unprovenanced-objects.asp

[notopri]

I have not heard of anything yet and be preopared to have a lot of evidence for the Bible declared fakes whether they are or aren't.

Keep in mind that declarations are just matters of opinion and scholars will disagree with each other based on the most minute clues.  case in point:

which consists only of the word hspr, meaning "the scribe." There the relative height of the letter samekh (s) followed by pe (p) in hspr is wrong

These scholars are using assumptions and generalizations to draw a conclusion they really cannot make. Just because the letters are the same size doesn't men the attributed author did not intend them to be the same size.

One must remember that this is not proof of a forgery, all they have are two letters which were done differently than the same two letters in other writings. Scholars tend to ignore a lot of mitigating factors when announcing their ideas.

It is possible that since this was a seal, the inscriber wanted to make sure all the letters were perfect.

This also gives you a clue as to which tdirection they are headed:

In the attempt to be objective, no one is going to completely rid Near Eastern archaeology of biblical influence anytime soon (even if that were seen as a desirable goal). Rather, when interpreting and evaluating discoveries that might tend to confirm or discount things to which biblical texts refer, one helpful method (used, e.g., by Klaas Smelik) is to interpret discoveries first in light of other discoveries, as much as possible without biblical input. Only then should they be compared with biblical texts.

One needsto consider the source.

[jacobpressures]

Thanks for the reply. Is there a place where one can get the current status of various biblical artifacts?  I'm quite sure someone has to have a list somewhere even if it is not online.

Thanks very much.

[jacobpressures]

Do you guys know if BAR has any articles on this?

[notopri]

Thanks for the reply. Is there a place where one can get the current status of various biblical artifacts?  I'm quite sure someone has to have a list somewhere even if it is not online

I am not aware of such a list but if you go to to the following website

http://www.biblearchaeology.org/

you can ask them about the standing of different artifats and they will usually give you a good answer.  address your questions to bryant wood or harry smith.

use the contact button there and please post their reply here so we can find out what they say as well.

Do you guys know if BAR has any articles on this?

don't know. haven't read all their magazines yet

[jacobpressures]

Wow thanks!